Only a couple of days remain for visitors to Prague to see the Bohemian Crown Jewels at the castle, but another collection of coronation regalia runs until the end of September.

The occasion is the 700th anniversary of the birth of Charles IV, King of Bohemia from 1346 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1355 until his death in 1378. Born into the Luxembourg dynasty, with a Czech mother, he was responsible for Prague’s Golden Age, building, among other things, the famous bridge and university named for him.

In keeping with centuries-old tradition laid down by Charles IV, the crown jewels only go on display for special occasions. The previous three times, it was for the election of a new president, combined with other celebrations. That's about once every five years, so the crowds are huge when you can view them.

I managed to see them in 2003, but I had to stand in line all day. It’s mainly for Czech citizens, since the Crown of St. Wenceslas is such an important symbol of statehood, and international tourists are often put off by the long waits. Putting the jewels on permanent display, but “The Castle” resists. It's hard to deny Charles' wishes.

Still, a set of imitations is available year-round. And this season, if you don't catch the real deal by 29 May, you can still view a special exhibit called “The Sceptre and the Crown: Charles IV and the Bohemian Royal Coronation.” It contains relics such as the crown worn by Bohemian queens, and a Gothic orb and mace which were replaced in the 18th century by newer ones fashioned with precious gems matching those in the crown.

This exhibit is housed in the Hradčany’s Royal Stables – which is not used for horses any more but for temporary exhibits and concerts. It closes on 28 September, the Feast of St. Wenceslas, appropriately.

There are no cannibals, and Troost’s only mention of the locals’ sex lives is a penchant for biting off the tips of their lovers’ noses out of jealousy. Still, this 2004 account of the author’s time in the Republic of Kiribati [pronounced Kee-ree-bahs], when he accompanies his girlfriend to her new job as a foundation director, is a hilarious read.

He heads off to an island in the South Pacific which is hotter than Washington, D.C. in August, with humidity like a wet blanket. Unemployment is 70 %. Troost laments the scarcity of clean water, electricity, and variety in food. He has frightening encounters with sharks and the sheer power of the Pacific Ocean. And he meets the Poet Laureate of Kiribati, a crass 21-year-old from the UK who had the audacity to propose himself for the position, even enclosing in his letter a cheesy poem which incorrectly rhymed “Kiribas” with “me” and “tree.” The government accepted his proposal, granting him a hut overlooking a lagoon, “to live the simple, literary life in Kiribati.”

Even if snarkiness isn’t entirely to my taste, I found Troost’s narrative infectious. His prose could use some occasional polishing, but he admits as much: “As careful readers may have already surmised, I favor the ditches of digression.” Perhaps his self-deprecation won me over. There’s also his sympathy for the peoples of the region – think of nuclear weapons testing.

It turns out I have two things in common with Troost. One is that we both lived in the former Czechoslovakia in the early 1990s, and I recall his columns from The Prague Post (I’m still envious that he had such a position fresh out of college).

The other is that the rap hit “Ice, Ice Baby” figured for both of us as a harbinger of Westernization. In my memoir Slovakian Rhapsody (forthcoming – I’m hunting for an agent and have made public readings of this excerpt), I relate how a teenager had me transcribe the lyrics of the song for him so he could perform it at a high school dance. He bombed, couldn’t even finish before being whistled/booed off stage.

Troost’s scene takes place in a maneaba, a large communal hut where the elders and other villagers gather. After some traditional dances, “a group of boys marched into the center of the maneaba and they looked like trouble. They wore droopy shorts. And bandanas around their heads. They glowered menacingly. Someone turned on a boom box….”

The author anticipates the reaction of the elders, “who could recite their genealogies back five hundred years and more, who knew how to read the water and the sky, who knew how to build things as large as a maneaba without a nail, who knew, in short, how to survive on an equatorial atoll on the far side of the world.”

Their response?

“I am saddened to report that [they]… smiled and nodded in time to the music, gleefully watching their grandsons prance around like junior varsity pimps. End this madness now! I felt like yelling. Trust me! It’s for your own good. ”

I know the feeling. And I share the hope that not everything will be ruined by commercialization. “Traditional singing and dancing existed not for the benefit of package toutists, but as a way to amuse and engage the people themselves once dusk put a definitive end to the day’s work. The lagoons were clean, untampered with by clogging causeways…, and on the turquoise surface, men fished in skillfully crafted sailing canoes.”

Finally, I’ve experienced the reverse cultural shock—upon returning to the U.S.—that Troost so vividly depicts in the end.

A worthy book indeed.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific, by J. Maarten Troost

Journalist Tony Horowitz’s account of various countries he covered in the Middle East may have come out at the time of the first Gulf War, but its entertaining insights are still loveable today – even relevant, despite all the changes the region has since undergone.

His journey begins when his wife gets a correspondent’s post in Cairo, and he follows as a stringer – a reporter who gets irregular jobs while living abroad. We get more insights into the tough life of a freelancer when he heads off to Yemen in search of a story “on spec,” a quasi-assignment with no guarantees of publication. The hilarity starts when he’s invited to join in the national pastime, chewing qat, a leafy green stimulant.

Having learned that such gatherings are BYOQ affairs, he picks up a bush of his own at a market. “Several thousand men in extreme good humor wandered from one pickup to another, each vehicle loaded with what looked like piles of yard clippings. Farther back sprawled a covered bazaar, also devoted to qat, and behind that, a tired-looking vegetable and animal market, dwarfed by the commerce in shrubs."

After stocking up on “Yemen salad,” he takes a taxi to the party. “I have chewed every day since the age of fifteen and I am still not an addict,” his cabbie tells him confidently.

He joins the party with the boys, replete with Pepsi, water pipe, and brass spittoons. “I was so busy chewing and hacking and spitting that I didn’t notice at first that the carpet was massaging my toes…. I stopped chewing for a moment, feeling a sudden urge to leap to my feet and stretch. But someone had glued my back to the cushions…. The tingling in my toes worked its way up my calves and along the back of my thighs and flooded into my spine."

“‘I can see from the stupid smile on your face that you have discovered the wonders of qat,’” says his host.

Horwitz describes with equal verve the obsession of Cairo men with rotund belly dancers, as well as finding humor and warmth in the most harrowing of situations.

Before long, Horwitz travels to the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War, hunting for a story on the disruption of shipping. After encountering spoiled students at a weekend camel races and obnoxious, sex-starved Texas oilmen who’ve lived there for decades, he finally catches a dhow to explore the waters. The boat is run by Indians, part of the “subcontinental drift that brought millions of Indian workers to the oil-rich Arabian shores.” Most of the people who went down with all the merchant ships sunk in the war, Horwitz points out, were “Indian, Pakistani, Korean or Filipino.”

Sailing out at night onto the inkwell of the Persian Gulf, he discusses sex and religion with his companions: Is it true that men and women in America live together without marriage? How is it then that they are still virgins when they marry? I have always wanted to meet this thing called Jew, and to hear about your messiahs. Horwitz admits to his own naiveté in asking of the Hindus, “What happens after the pyre?” Modern people don’t believe in reincarnation, the skipper replies.

During the day, what he sees on the Gulf is “an orange sea snake slithering past our bow and a dolphin poking its head above water. The rugged pink cliffs of Oman rose on one shore, the softer Iranian hills were shrouded in haze on the other. And in the thirty miles between lay an untroubled stretch of aquamarine.”

So much for that story, sacked by his editor for its lack of sensationalism, depth be damned.

Horwitz eventually manages to find his adrenaline rush as shells explode in the water around his boat from Cyprus to Lebanon during the latter’s civil war. He also experiences the ghastliness of the Iran-Iraq front, the ever-present fear of society under Saddam Hussein, the patronizing treatment of journalists in Gadhafi’s Libya, and nearly being trampled by seas of black-clad mourners at Ayatollah Khomeini’s funeral.

In the midst of these stories, Horwitz relates daily life in the Middle East with sensitivity. He captures poignantly the frustrations of a Cairo desk clerk he befriends, an intelligent young man who studies languages in his spare time, dreaming of marrying a foreign woman and emigrating. This Yousri personifies the thwarted desires and hopes of millions. Given the failures of the Arab Spring, his plight is most pertinent even a quarter-century later.

Baghdad Without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia, by Tony Horwitz.

May as the month of love and maypoles are still widely practiced in many European countries. Although the exact pagan origins and symbolism are disputed, and customs vary, in Slovakia the maypole is associated with love and marriage. Unmarried men are responsible for cutting down the tree later decorated and raised in the town square. In some cases, a young man in love will--with the aid of friends--put one up in the yard of his beloved. So I've been told by Slovak friends, this nearly amounts to a marriage proposal.

The video below is from Liptovský Hrádok, Slovakia, where students of the School of Forestry and two folklore ensembles carry on the tradition. The song is Máj, máj, máj, zelený - "Green Maypole." Here is one of the verses with my translation.

"Get out of bed, girl, we're putting up a Maypole for you, if you don't get out of bed, you won't get one. Green Maypole, Maypole, Maypole, planted under [your] window."

So, here's wishing everyone lots of love this month!

I'll be back next week, May 12, with the first of my Summer Reading entries for this year: reviews of books you can take on vacation, or that will take you to a destination from the comfort and safety of your armchair.